1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a print control device, a print control method, and a program thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the related art, a service called “copy service,” “printing service,” or the like is known in which a designated document requested by a customer is printed by a designated number of copy sets, and the printed sheets are bound in a designated method and delivered. A printing agency, providing such a service, schedules printing orders received from customers so as to meet the deadline, taking human and material resources into consideration, and then performs printing. Thus, there is a need for a system capable of accurately checking whether scheduled jobs are done as planned and of efficiently executing printing, and such a system has been proposed.
As an example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-149388 discloses a printer control device which solves a problem of a conventional system in that it is difficult to understand the total amount of loads in an entire printing system and a distribution state of the load to respective printers, and which includes a schedule view for displaying a load state of printers within the system in realtime and graphically. Specifically, this printer control device allocates a print job to any of the printers and calculates the time needed for the printer to which the print job is allocated to perform printing. The calculated time is displayed with a predetermined shape having a length proportional to the time. Moreover, the predetermined shapes corresponding to all print jobs which are allocated to the printers and have not been completed are displayed by arranging at regular intervals in the horizontal or vertical direction to thereby show the load states of the respective printers. With this configuration, it is possible to understand the total amount of loads in an entire printing system and a distribution state of the load to respective printers.
However, in the printer control device having the schedule view disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2002-149388 or the like, several factors that affect calculation of the printing time are not taken into consideration. For example, the printing speed of a printer changes depending on a sheet used for the printing. That is, the printing speed of a printer depends on the thickness, width, and length of a sheet. Specifically, if the thickness of a sheet increases, the printing speed decreases in order to fix toner sufficiently. If the width of a sheet has a predetermined size or smaller, the printing speed decreases in order to prevent overheating of a heat roller. Moreover, if the length of a sheet increases, the printing speed decreases since a sheet conveying length increases. In particular, since various types of sheets are used in the printers used by the printing agency, the effect of a difference in sheet is great. Thus, if some factors that affect the calculation of the printing time are not taken into consideration; a print job in which it is not possible to obtain the information such as the number of pages to print is input; or a factor such as the time needed for changing sheets between print jobs is not taken into consideration, there is a problem in that the calculated printing time is not appropriate.